Fingers, thumbs, palms, cruised over her. Rough, then gentle, tender, then demanding, as if he was refusing to let any one mood rule. Driven, she pulled at him, tried to tug him closer. But each time she did, he stopped, patiently lowered her arms until she had no choice but to grip the edge of the desk and let him have his way.

No one had ever made love to her like this, as if she were essential, as if she were all there was and all there needed to be. As if her pleasure were paramount. Pinpoint sensations percolated along her skin, chased by others, whisper-soft, then still more that seeped slyly through flesh to blood and bone.

She arched back on a keening moan when he closed his teeth over her, shot her to some rugged ground on the border between pleasure and pain.

"Just take me." Her arms whipped around him, her body straining, pulsing.

But he took her hands, locked them to his as he kissed her toward delirium. Her mouth was a feast, full of hot flavor and a hunger that matched his own. But this time he wasn't content to sink into it, or her. He used his teeth to torment, his tongue to tease, until her breath came in tearing gasps.

"Let me touch you," she demanded.

"Not this time. Not yet." He closed her hands over the edge of the desk again, held them there while his mouth raced to her throat, down her neck, over those tensed and beautiful shoulders. "I'm going to take you, Savannah." He eased back, because he wanted her to see his face, and the unshakable purpose there. "I'm going to take you inch by inch. The way no one ever has."

For her pleasure, he told himself. But he knew a part of it was his own pride. He wanted to show her that no man before, and no man after, could make her feel what he could.

So he showed her, traveling like lightning down her torso, her flesh damp now, not from rain, but from passion.

She gave herself over to him as she had never done with any man. Surrender complete, she braced herself on the desk and let him ravage her, body and mind.

He tugged off her shoes. She let her head fall back, let herself moan deep as he eased her jeans low on her hips, caressed that revealed flesh with his lips. She shuddered, nearly sobbed, as his hands kneaded and his mouth closed over her, fire to fire.

She crested fast and hard. Terrifying. Wonderful. He never stopped, and as the pleasure whipped her ruthlessly higher, she prayed he never would. Naked, stripped of clothes and all defenses, she could do nothing but experience, absorb and give.

He'd never known this kind of desire. To take and to take, knowing as he did that he was filling her with unspeakable pleasure. The blood swam in his head as he felt her peak yet again, heard that breathless cry catch in her throat.

The strong muscles in her legs were quivering. He ran his tongue over them, lingering over the symbol she'd branded herself with, before making his way, purposely, greedily, up that long body.

Her eyes were closed. He used his mouth only to keep her poised and ready for him as he stripped off his shirt. He toed off his shoes, whipped his trousers aside. And dragged her to the floor.

The animal that had been pacing restlessly inside him sprang free. He drove himself into her, mindlessly, shuddering with a dark thrill when she cried out his name, hissing with hot pleasure as her nails scraped his back.

It was all heat and speed and plunging bodies, a rhythmic, tribal beat of flesh against flesh. The blood hammered in his head, his heart, his loins, relentlessly. She arched up to him, straining, straining.

His vision grayed, his world contracted. He emptied himself into her.

Savannah thought, if she really tried, she might be able to crawl to where her clothes were heaped. And she would try, she told herself. In just another minute or two.

Right now, it was so lovely and decadent to lie there on the antique carpet in Jared's quietly elegant office with his body heavy on hers.

She had been, she realized, thoroughly and mind-numbingly ravished. As exciting as making love with him had been before, this was a different level entirely. She certainly hoped they would strive for it now and again in the future.

"I have to get up," she murmured.

"Why?"

"To make certain I'm not paralyzed."

"Did I hurt you?"

She kept her eyes closed, let her lips curve. "Another few minutes of that, and you'd have killed me." Making the effort, she found the energy to stroke a hand through his hair. "Thank you."

"Anytime." He let out a long, heartfelt sigh before he pressed a kiss to her throat. "Of course, I don't know how I'm ever going to work in here again." Moaning a little, he rolled off her. "I'll have a client sitting in the chair while I go over the details of his case, and I'll get a flash of you leaning naked against the desk."

She laughed, then discovered she really did have to crawl. Her legs might never support her again. "He'll get suspicious when you get a stupid grin on your face."

"And start drooling." Spent, Jared reached for his shirt. He angled his head to get a glimpse of her tattoo. "Hell of a way to kick off the new color scheme."

"Didn't you ever kick off the old one?"

He had to concentrate on remembering how to button his shirt, so it took him a minute. The snort of laughter came first. "You mean me and Barbara? I'm not sure she ever unbuttoned her double-breasted blazer in here. Not her style."

In her underwear, Savannah turned to study him. "You were married to her, right?"

"That's what it said on the license."

"Why?"

"It has to say that. It's the law."

"Why were you married to her?"

"We had a lot in common. I thought." He shrugged it off. "We both wanted to establish ourselves in our respective professions, knew a lot of the same people, attended a lot of the same functions."

It disturbed him still how empty it sounded when he pulled things apart and looked at all the pieces. "She was a sensible, reasonable and sophisticated woman. That's what I wanted—or thought I did. A kind of contrast to the hotheaded-troublemaker image I'd carved out for myself when I was younger."

"You wanted dignity." Still sitting on the floor, Savannah buttoned her shirt.

"That's accurate enough. It seemed important then."

"It's still important. It always is." Though she realized it would sound a bit foolish while she tugged herself into her jeans, she said it anyway. "I always wanted it, too. Not in the double-breasted-suit sort of way. Not my style. Just in the way people look at you, what they see when they do."

She pulled on a shoe. "That's why I like living here. I can start fresh."

"We all look back." He walked over to the coat-rack for his tie. "It's human nature."

"I don't." She said it almost fiercely as she pulled on the second shoe. "Not anymore."

He gave his full attention to the tying of his tie. "There's no one? Of all the people you've known, the people who've touched you?"

She started to answer lightly, but then it struck her. He didn't mean people. He meant men. And she remembered what he had said as he made love to her, made her churn and shiver.

The way no one ever has.

And so, she thought, hurt, that was the crux of it. "You mean lovers."

"You said lovers. I said people."

"I know what you said, Jared. No, there's no one who was important enough to look back to."

Bryan's father. He nearly said it, nearly asked, but it stuck in his throat. In his pride. "You're angry," he stated, noting the glint in her eye.

"It just crossed my mind that what happened here was a kind of demonstration. A chest-beating male sort of thing, to illustrate that you're better than anyone I might have had before."

Now his own eyes glinted. "That's a remarkably stupid observation."

"Don't tell me I'm stupid." She snapped it out, then managed to pull herself back under control. Don't let it matter, she reminded herself. Don't let it sting. "You can relax, Jared, you proved your point. You're an extraordinary lover. Right over the top." She sauntered over to brush a hand over his tensed jaw. "I enjoyed every minute of it. But now I don't have time to hang your paintings. I've got some errands to run before I head back home."

He put a hand on her arm. He understood her well enough now to know that careless arrogance was one of her ways of covering anger. "I think we have something to talk about."

"It'll have to wait." Reaching behind him, she flipped open the lock. "We've eaten up your lunch hour, and I imagine Sissy'll be breezing back any minute." She gave him a light, careless kiss before shaking her arm free.

"We have something to talk about," he repeated.

"Fine. You get it all worked out in your head, and we'll talk about it tonight." Knowing she was goading him, she curved her lips in a cocky smile. "Thanks for the demonstration, MacKade. It was memorable."

She wouldn't have gotten two feet if Sissy hadn't rushed in below. "Hey, Savannah," she called up cheerfully. "The way it's coming down out there, you're going to want to trade your car in for an ark."

"Then I'd better get moving," Savannah said, and walked down the stairs without looking back.

Chapter Eleven

He bought flowers. Jared wasn't sure whether he was apologizing or he'd simply gotten into the habit of picking them up once or twice a week because Savannah always looked so surprised and pleased when he walked in with a bouquet.

He didn't like to think the clutch of late-spring blooms was an apology, because he didn't think he'd been completely wrong. Technically, he hadn't asked, he'd only intimated a question. And why the hell shouldn't he ask?

He wanted to know more about her, the who and what and why of her past. Not just the pieces she let drop from time to time, but the whole picture.

Of course, his timing and delivery had been poor. He could admit that. He could even admit that it had nipped at his temper that she'd seen through him so easily. But the bottom line was, he had a right to know. They were going to have a calm, reasonable talk about just that.

Perhaps because he was so primed, so ready, he found himself simmering when he drove up the lane and saw that her car was gone.

Where the hell was she? It was after six. He stood by his car, frowning, looking over the land. The rain had left the tumbling flowers on the bank vivid and wet. The azaleas she'd planted had lost most of their blossoms, but their leaves were a rich and glossy green.

He remembered the first day he'd seen her, digging in the earth, with pots of flowers surrounding her and the rocky, neglected bank waiting.

She'd done something here, he thought. Those roots she'd talked about were still shallow, but she'd dug them in. He needed to believe that she had made that commitment, and found comfort in the green of the grass she preferred to mow herself, in the mixed colors of the blooms she tended religiously, in the woods beyond that they both seemed to share on such a deep, personal level.

He saw Bryan's bike standing beside the walkway, a bright orange Frisbee that had ended its flight in the middle of the sloping lawn, a wheelbarrow full of mulch parked beside the porch.

Details, he mused, little details that made a home.

And it hit him suddenly and forcefully that he wanted, needed, it to be his home. Not just a place where he left a few of his things so that it was convenient to spend the night. Home.

He didn't want Savannah to be just the woman he loved and made love with. He'd failed at marriage once, and had been sure, so sure, that he would never put himself in the position where he could fail at something so personal and public again. Hadn't he told himself he would be content to drift along in this relationship?

But he'd been lying to himself almost from the beginning, because he hadn't been content and didn't want to drift. So he poked at her, prodded, subtly and not so subtly, for those answers to who she was, where she'd been. While part of him, the part that was pride and heart, was wounded every time she didn't simply volunteer the answers.

He wanted her to confide in him, to share with him every part of her that had been, that was, that would be. He needed her to turn to him when she was troubled or sad, or when she was happy.

He wanted, Jared realized, drawing a slow, steady breath. He wanted her to marry him, have children with him, grow old with him.

He started up the walkway, pausing to lay a hand on Bryan's bike. He wanted the boy. That, too, was fresh and revealing news. He didn't want Bryan to be Savannah's son, but their son. Helping Bryan with his homework, boning up on baseball, cheering from the bleachers at a game. Jared realized he'd gotten used to those things, looked forward to them. Looked forward to that quick grin, the shouted greeting.